It’s hardly surprising that America’s
economy shrank by 1% the first quarter of 2014, our labor participation
rate is a miserable 63% and real unemployment stands at 14% (and much
worse for blacks and Hispanics).

It’s no wonder a recent Gallup poll
found that 56% of respondents said the economy, unemployment and
dissatisfaction with government are the most serious problems facing our
nation – whereas only 3% said it is environmental issues, with climate
change only a small segment of that.

So naturally, the Environmental Protection Agency issued another
round of draconian restrictions on coal-fired power plants, once again
targeting carbon dioxide emissions. EPA rules now effectively prevent
the construction of new plants and require the closure of hundreds of
older facilities. By 2030 the regulations will cost 224,000 jobs, force
US consumers to pay $289 billion more for electricity, and lower
disposable incomes for American households by $586 billion, the US Chamber of Commerce calculates.

The House of Representatives holds hearings and investigations, and
drafts corrective legislation that the Harry Reid Senate immediately
squelches. When questions or challenges arise, the courts defer to
“agency discretion,” even when agencies ignore or rewrite statutory
provisions. Our three co-equal branches of government have become an
“Executive Branch trumps all” system – epitomized by EPA.

Some legal philosophers refer to this as “post-modernism.” President Obama’s constitutional law professor called it “the curvature
of constitutional space.” A better term might be neo-colonialism –
under which an uncompromising American ruler and his agents control
citizens by executive fiat, to slash fossil fuel use, fundamentally transform
our Constitution, economy and social structure, and redistribute wealth
and political power to cronies, campaign contributors and voting blocs
that keep them in power.

Even worse, in the case of climate change, this process is buttressed
by secrecy, highly questionable research, contrived peer reviews,
outright dishonesty, and an absence of accountability.

Fewer than half
of Americans believe climate change is manmade or dangerous. Many know
that China, Australia, Canada, India and even European countries are revising policies
that have pummeled families, jobs, economies and industries with
anti-hydrocarbon and renewable energy requirements. They understand that
even eliminating coal and petroleum use in the United States will not
lower atmospheric carbon dioxide levels or control a climate that has
changed repeatedly throughout Earth’s history.

Mr. Obama and EPA chief Gina McCarthy are nevertheless determined to
slash reliance on coal, even in 20 states that rely on this fuel for
half to 95% of their electricity, potentially crippling their economies.
The President has said electricity rates will “necessarily skyrocket,”
coal companies will face bankruptcy, and if Congress does not act on
climate change and cap-tax-and-trade, he will. Ms. McCarthy has
similarly said she “didn’t go to Washington to sit around and wait for
congressional action.”

However, they know “pollution” and “children’s health” resonate much
better than “climate disruption” among voters. So now they mix their
climate chaos rhetoric with assertions that shutting down coal-fired
power plants will reduce asthma rates among children. It is a false,
disingenuous argument.

A Fed-Up Veteran Blasts VA's "Lie, Delay, Deny" Abyss

As Obama administration officials pivot like haywire jewelry-box
ballerinas to divert attention away from the nationwide Veterans Affairs
disgrace, a reader who has been fighting the system urged me to urge
Capitol Hill and the American public to stay focused.

This former Special Forces soldier and medic served his country for 25
years. He worked in the health care field managing military field
medical clinics. "I know how health care is supposed to run, even in
austere or low-budget environments," he says. And in his nightmarish,
ongoing experience, the VA is an epic, deadly, monstrous failure. He
minces no words: "They're getting billions of dollars, and they treat
veterans like s-t. There's no accountability, no buy-in, among civilian
unionized employees. We mean nothing to them. It's like going to the DMV
for your health care."

Over the past four years, the veteran tells me, he has been under
direct VA care for two major line-of-duty-related injuries, including
one combat-related injury. One of the medical centers that treated him
-- or rather mistreated him and maltreated him -- is the Coatesville,
Pa., VA. It's the same facility where four vets died due to medical
malpractice, leading to nearly $1.4 million in settlements to vets'
families, according to The Center for Investigative Reporting.

The harrowing cases included two fatal failures to monitor patients,
improper management of a psychiatric patient, and wrongful diagnosis or
misdiagnosis of a patient.

These details are all too familiar to my reader. "I have been
misdiagnosed, had a missed diagnosis, and had delays of care lasting
months," he says. "My records have been lost, changed, split and
mismanaged." He has experienced firsthand the same "slow-walking" of
care that millions of other VA patients have encountered and scores have
died from -- a systemic modus operandi of "lie, delay, deny."

The vet gets a catch in his voice as he relates a horrible anecdote.
After refusing to return to the Coatesville facility and seeking
treatment at another VA clinic one day, he became nauseous. Instead of
allowing him to lie down on a gurney, a nurse made him vomit outside so
he wouldn't soil the bed. He believes the office was open not to treat
patients, but as a front for nurses to pick up extra shifts.

He has
encountered similar degrading and condescending treatment across the VA
system.

When he appealed for help and advocacy within the system, the veteran
was met with a stone wall of "Not My Job"-ism. Through denials of care,
contraindicated medications, repeated mistakes and delays of pharmacy
items, he endured callousness, humiliation and stigmatization. "When I
get angry, they call me 'crazy.'" Classic blame-the-victim tactics from
the VA abusers.

Big Government politicians want to throw more funding at the VA, as
usual. The veteran offers a scathing reality check: "There is ample
money to address the needs of American veterans," he says.

"The problem
is far deeper and more dangerous than just secret waiting lists. The VA
almost killed me; my health is worse now than it was when I entered
care; my quality of life and living conditions have been nothing short
of horrific as I have waited years for adjudication of my benefits case,
which in the end was botched."

Again, the vet refuses to candy-coat the roots of the festering VA
scandal: "The problem is not just waiting lists. It is utter fraudulent
expenditure of enormous budgets, not on veterans, but on overpaid lazy,
surly civilian employees that often make it clear that a) they do not
like veterans and b) that the veteran is actually a nuisance. The
problem is endemic, at every level, in the VA. The unfortunate fact of
the matter is this: Veterans have become incidental to the process at
the VA."

The system is "an enormous cash cow, warehousing tens of thousands of
overpaid employees" who "keep the gravy-train rolling." The vet has a
plea on behalf of all of his brothers and sisters who are drowning in
the VA's "lie, delay, deny" abyss:

"Please, don't let this die."

CORRECTION: In last week's column, I erroneously stated that
ProgressNow was responsible for an attack ad against Colorado GOP
gubernatorial candidate Tom Tancredo. The ad was sponsored by Protect
Colorado Values, a separate Democrat-linked outfit.

President Obama say, “President Barack Obama addressed the United Nations General Assembly this morning … The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.”

Obama is doing all he can — to make sure that those who attack and
kill Americans in the cause of Islam…do less celeb interviews. Obama
said, “with this operation, the United States has once again
demonstrated that we will do whatever it takes to see that justice is
done when people harm Americans.” Obama will do whatever he can — in
between media interviews.

The Libyan militant suspected in the deadly attack on
Americans in Benghazi hid in plain sight in the African nation prior to
his capture by U.S. forces on Sunday — granting multiple media interviews to news outlets including Fox News.

Ahmed Abu Khattala, a senior leader of the terror group Ansar
al-Sharia in Libya, brazenly gave several interviews with reporters
despite being one of the suspected ringleaders in the September 2012
attack, during which Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other
Americans died.

State and Defense officials were asked repeatedly Tuesday why reporters were able to access Khattala while U.S. forces apparently were not, until they captured him on Sunday.

“What matters is that … we got him,” a Pentagon spokesman said.

One month after the attack, Khattala told Fox News’ Greg Palkot that
he was at the scene of the attack, but denied planning it. He claimed to
be directing traffic and protecting fellow militia members guarding the
complex.

Khattala also warned one newspaper that his capture could backfire for the U.S.

“God knows what would happen in Libya if I was taken away,” Khattala,
then 42, told The Times (London) in October. “This act would win the
Americans more enemies, and they would fall.”

“God knows what would happen in Libya if I was taken
away. This act would win the Americans more enemies, and they would
fall.”- Ahmed Abu Khattala

Why
are they fleeing? The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria wants to create
an Islamic state ruled by Sharia, and as every mainstream media reporter
in the United States knows, Sharia is entirely benign, humane, and
compatible with principles of human rights.

So why are they fleeing?
Have Iraqi Christians been reading the writings of greasy Islamophobes?
Or could it be that they see what Sharia is with their own eyes, and
that the mainstream narrative is wrong?

Over the past decade, Iraqi Christians have fled
repeatedly to this ancient mountainside village, seeking refuge from
violence, then returning home when the danger eased. Now they are doing
it again as Islamic militants rampage across northern Iraq, but this
time few say they ever want to go back to their homes.

The flight is a new blow to Iraq’s dwindling Christian community,
which is almost as old as the religion itself but which has already been
devastated since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. During the past 11 years,
at least half of the country’s Christian population has fled the
country, according to some estimates, to escape frequent attacks by
Sunni Muslim militants targeting them and their churches.

Now many of those who held out and remained may be giving up
completely after fighters belonging to the Islamic State of Iraq and the
Levant swept over the city of Mosul and a broad swath of the country
the past week.

“I’m not going back,” said Lina, who fled Mosul with her family as
the militants swept in and came to Alqosh, about 50 kilometers (31
miles) to the north.

“Each day we went to bed in fear,” the 57-year-old woman said,
sitting in a house for displaced people. “In our own houses we knew no
rest.” Like other Christians who fled here, she spoke on condition she
be identified only by her first name for fear for her safety.

In leaving, the Christians are emptying out communities that date
back to the first centuries of the religion, including Chaldean,
Assyrian and Armenian churches. The past week, some 160 Christian
families – mostly from Mosul – have fled to Alqosh, mayor Sabri Boutani
told The Associated Press, consulting first on the number with his wife
by speaking in Chaldean, the ancient language spoken by many residents.

Alqosh, dating back at least to the 1st century BC, is a jumble of
pastel-painted homes nestled at the base of a high craggy hill among
rolling plains of wheat fields. The village’s population of 6,000 is
about half Christian and half ethnic Kurds. Located just outside the
autonomous Kurdish zone of northern Iraq, Kurdish fighters known as
peshmerga have moved into the town to protect it.

Many Christians are deciding that the comparatively liberal and prosperous Kurdish regions are their safest bet.

“Every Christian prefers to stay in Kurdistan,” said Abu Zeid, an engineer. He too said he wouldn’t be going back to Mosul.

“It’s a shame because Mosul is the most important city in Iraq for
Christians,” he added. Mosul is said to be the site of the burial of
Jonah, the prophet who tradition says was swallowed by a whale.

Republicans cheered the capture of Ahmed Abu Khattala, who
played a key role in the 2012 Benghazi attacks that killed four
Americans, but demanded that he be held at Guantanamo Bay and questioned
thoroughly.

But that won't be happening, a White House spokeswoman said late Tuesday.

President Barack Obama has decided not to send Khattala to Guantanamo,
said National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden.

"The administration’s policy is clear on this issue: We have not added a
single person to the GTMO population since President Obama took office,
and we have had substantial success delivering swift justice to
terrorists through our federal court system," Hayden told The Hill in a statement.

Before that news broke, key Republicans weighed in on how Khattala should be dealt with.

"It is obviously good news that this terrorist is now in American
custody," House Speaker John Boehner said in a statement. "I am grateful
for the work of our military, assisted by the FBI, in capturing him.

"I look forward to hearing more details regarding the raid, and I expect
the administration to give our military professionals time to properly
gather any useful intelligence he has," the Ohio Republican said.

And four senators — John McCain of Arizona, Lindsey Graham of South
Carolina, Marco Rubio of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas — said that
Khattala should be viewed as an enemy combatant and held at the U.S.
prison camp at Guantanamo.

"Obviously he should be put on trial," McCain told The Washington Post. "I'd bring him to Guantanamo. Where else can you take him to?"

Graham told the Post that Khattala should not be read his Miranda rights.

"I hope we gather intelligence through the law of war interrogation," Graham said. "He should be going to Gitmo."

Rubio said in a statement that "the Obama administration should
immediately transfer him to the military detention center at Guantanamo
Bay for detention and interrogation.

"In order to locate all individuals associated with the attacks that led
to the deaths of four Americans, we need intelligence," he said. "That
intelligence is often obtained through an interrogation process."

And Cruz said in a statement that Khattala "has been openly defying the United States for more than 20 months.

"Now that he is in custody, the proper authorities should be given ample
time to assess what intelligence he may have about ongoing terrorist
operations against Americans.

"Khattala is a foreign terrorist, captured by our special forces
overseas for his violent attack on a U.S. facility. He belongs in
Guantanamo and in the military justice system, not in the U.S. civilian
court system with the constitutional protections afforded U.S. citizens.

"Our top priority should be preventing future attacks and bringing to
justice the other terrorists who participated in the murder of four
Americans in Benghazi," Cruz said.

Khattala, the commander of the Ansar al-Sharia militant group, was captured
Sunday in Libya south of Benghazi in a joint U.S. military and
law-enforcement operation. He is to be prosecuted in the United States.

Formed during the Libyan Civil War in 2011, Ansar al-Sharia rose to
prominence after the killing of Moammar Gadhafi. It also consists of the
February 17th Martyrs Brigade and other Islamic terrorist groups.

"It's important for us to send a message to the world that when
Americans are attacked, no matter how long it takes, we will find those
responsible and we will bring them to justice." - Barack HUSSEIN Obama patting himself on the back regarding the capture of Ahmed Abu Khattala

Giving Obama a perfect narrative to once again sing his own praises,
a new divert and deflect attention grabber has appeared as America's
very own traitor-in-chief announced yesterday for all the world to hear
that U.S. Special Operations forces captured Ansar al-Sharia commander
Ahmed Abu Khattala...one of the supposed ringleaders of the attacks at
Benghazi. Captured in a 'secret raid' in Libya over the weekend...on
Obama's so claimed Friday go-ahead... what I want to know is why did he
did NOT arrest himself and Hillary 'What Does It Matter' Clinton instead
as they are the ones truly responsible for Benghazi...period.

So as Iraq falls to ISIS because of his...YES his...aiding and
abetting the enemy... as Lois Lerner's e-mails have gone 'poof' into thin
air...as the VA screws our vets while GITMO pieces of garbage and
ILLEGALS get better medical care than they do...as our southern border
is being overrun...Obama has 'suddenly' 642 days later...when his poll
numbers are in the toilet...pulled a 'Hail Mary' pass and captures
someone half a world away without a shot being fired and without so much
as a struggle. And he did so while off playing golf, doing fundraisers,
and bloviating about non-existent climate change at an ubber liberal
southern California college.

And ain't he just so special to be able to all this yet he still can't
get the ObamaCare website fully operational...which might actually be a good thing
when you think about it.

So the man who claims he took out Osama bin-Laden...remember it was
all about him as he gave little credit to the Navy SEALS...now claims
his orders facilitated the capture of Ahmed Abu Khattala. Ahmed Abu
Khattala, the very man who sipped lattes right after Benghazi telling
the FBI that it wasn't safe to investigate...the very man who lived free
in plain sight all these years and even talked to reporters...was
captured just south of Benghazi on Sunday.
“He is now being transported back to the United States,” Obama
spewed in his 'it's all about me' photo-op appearance before the cameras
at TechShop in Pittsburgh, PA. And while he might be coming back to the
U.S. now, what I want to know is how long Khattala has really been in
custody waiting for just the right moment to do the 'sinking in the
polls' Obama the most good...how long has this so-called just captured
scenario been cooked up for if truth be told this is the mother of all
divert and deflect tactics saved for the very moment when Trey Gowdy's
Benghazi hearings are due to start...saved for the very moment when
criticism is reaching a crescendo against Obama for his lack of action
and lies about all things Benghazi.

And what a perfect diversion to take the pressure off Hillary's
involvement as she sets-up what many believe will be is her 2016
presidential run.

With it taking a three-count criminal complaint...a complaint filed
last year in U.S. District Court in Washington, DC...against Khattala
and at least a dozen other terrorists...YES terrorists...in connection
with the attack at Benghazi...it must be remembered that this is a
complaint NOT an indictment or the paper work needed to actually charge
him. Filed by the FBI to justify the capture of the very man who's been
on the government's list of 'highly wanted targets' for years...that man
will be charged in a U.S. criminal court with “killing a person in the course of an attack on a federal facility involving use of a firearm,” on Sept. 11-12, 2012, providing and conspiring to “provide material support to terrorists resulting in a death” and possessing and using a firearm during a crime of violence.

And if convicted on the felony charges of murder alone, Khattala
could be given the death penalty or life imprisonment, but with this
being the U.S. where terrorists are read Miranda Rights and treated with
kid gloves, you just know Khattala will be 'lawyered-up' to the hilt
making this criminal complaint just another 'dog and pony' show that
might play well for the cameras but will probably amount to a slap on
the wrist...after all he is one of the 'anointed one's' brethren you
know.

So should Khattala be tried by the military as some want...me
included...and could he end up where we usually hold al-Qaida militants
as in the GITMO Country Club...complete with 3-squares a day...computer
and TV access...soccer fields... better medical care than our veterans
get...along with other creature comforts he most likely NEVER had back
in the Libyian cesspool he came from. And while I'd love to see him in
GITMO complete with a daily dose of waterboarding...I seriously doubt he
will be on either account as the Obama loyal FBI knowingly filed
criminal instead of terrorist charges to make sure it stayed in civilian
court...where the case could languish and be stalled for years to allow
Obama time to crow about this up through and beyond the November mid-term elections.

And so Kattala will be gently handled and his rights protected while
Christopher Stevens, Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods, and Glen Doherty remain
dead...while Barack HUSSEIN Obama gets away with (I believe) murder yet
again. And instead of American jurisprudence following China's lead when
it come to terrorists...as in over the weekend China executed in a
timely manner 13 people with muslim connections who were indicted and
convicted of terrorism...the 'supposed' rights of a terrorist will trump
doing what we all know needs to be done. And Ahmed Abu Khattala will
be given a prayer rug and a qur'an, will be kept well-fed, and will be
allowed access to the internet and TV...and it will be all on our
taxpayer dime.

If
you want the TRUTH of Obama’s hand in the Iraqi ISIS uprising and
what’s REALLY going on in Iraq…Join Craig and Diane TODAY on RIGHT
SIDE PATRIOTS…2-4pm EST on CPR Worldwide Media as they are joined by the
foremost experts on Obama’s covert agenda…Dr. JIM GARROW, a 45- year CIA op and WALID SHOEBAT…the world renowned expert on islam and terrorism!!!

There is so much you haven’t heard and RIGHT SIDE PATRIOTS will EXPOSE IT ALL!!!

Trust RIGHT SIDE PATRIOTS to leave NO STONE UNTURNEDTWO GREAT GUESTS…ONE HUGE SHOW YOU WILL NOT WANT TO MISS!!!

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I am an American Patriot...part of the grassroots movement of bloggers spreading the truth the media will not. I am also co-host with Craig Andresen of RIGHT SIDE PATRIOTS on RSP Radio at: https://streamingv2.shoutcast.com/right-side-patriots